NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

opportunity for online theft of credit card information. Internet sales by UK businesses
reached £163 billion in 2007, an increase of over 30 per cent on the 2006 figure of
£125.2 billion. 34
The greater frequency of credit card transactions through Pin Entry Devices, online or
phone payments increases the opportunities for criminals to capture data. These later
are supplied on underground servers. 35 As a consequence, credit card fraud has
increased rapidly, reaching £535.2 million in 2007 in the UK alone, according to APACS.
International credit card fraud for 2007/2008 has been estimated at £3.35 billion. 36
Figure 1 shows that the latest increase in UK card fraud follows a temporary slowdown
during 2005 and 2006, which coincided with the introduction of chip and pin technology.
Average growth has been 16 per cent a year since 1997.
Figure 1
Source: Calculated from APACS, “Fraud: the facts” (2008).
34 The Office for National Statistics (ONS) database.
35 Symantec (2008) “Symantec Report on the Underground Economy”, July 07–June 08.
36 Estimated by Symantec (2008), “Symantec Report on the Underground Economy”, July 07–June 08.
However the accuracy of this figure can be questioned since it was calculated by multiplying the average
amount of fraud perpetrated on a stolen card, $350 (£234), by the amount of credit card details Symantec
observed being offered for sale, including those potentially invalid or cancelled.
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